Less Serious Outtakes from Fast & Serious Interviews

By Nancy Weingartner

Published: 2016.02.09 11:48 AM

When you have 40 Fast and Serious profiles to write, it’s all fingers on deck. Franchise Times’ four staff writers each took 10 companies to interview. Because to fit in print, they had to be brief, I’ve included a couple of outtakes that I thought were too good not to be shared.

Retro Fitness’ Eric Casaburi said if he had a nickel for every time someone told him they needed to get into shape before they could join a gym, “I wouldn’t be on this call, I’d be on an island.”

His popular Season 4 episode of "Undercover Boss" is online, and , yes, we immediately downloaded it as soon as we hung up the phone with Casaburi. It’s important to note that when it became apparent snarky employee Jacqueline must be fired, he called in the franchisee (who was equally disappointed with his employee) to handle the actual firing. IFA, whose leaders are fighting the National Labor Relations Board on the joint-employer issue, should be so proud.

Jeff Sinelli’s Which Wich yellow is like the Coca-Cola red, he says. “I want our yellow to be to be associated with us and the last thing we want to do is dilute it,” he said, speaking both figuratively and literally.

Sinelli is a big believer in outfitting his staff with uniforms (cool clothes) and logo’d sports shoes. The logo on the shoes, however, is Which Wich’s and the colors are black and yellow. “The shoes have been a metaphor,” he pointed out, as in you don’t know what someone’s going through until you walk a mile in their shoes. “We take care of them,” he said, about his employees. The chain makes sure employees (all of whom are the employees of the franchisee, unless they're in corporate stores) have food in their stomachs, clothes on their backs, shoes on their feet. And military-style dog tags with the employee’s name and date of employment stamped on it.

People are either givers or takers, Sinelli said, adding, “We want to be on the G side.”